1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of electronic commerce (hereafter “e-commerce”). More particularly, the present invention relates to methods and systems for directory-authenticated electronic transactions including contingency-dependent payments via secure electronic bank drafts.
2. Description of the Related Art
The network of computers and networks commonly known as the Internet, initially developed as a military and academic communications tool, has now matured into a global communications medium. The explosive growth of the Internet, together with the increasingly ubiquitous availability of high bandwidth access thereto, has spurred efforts in adapting this medium for commercial purposes. The twin developments of the World Wide Web (hereafter “Web”) and the software tools for navigating the Web known as “browsers” have been instrumental in facilitating popular acceptance of the buying and selling of goods and services on the Internet. Currently, a person wishing to buy goods and/or services on the Web (hereafter “Web buyer”) must first find the Universal Resource Locator (hereafter “URL”) of the merchant of interest (hereafter “Web seller”), typically using a search engine or a portal. Alternatively, the user may learn the URL of a seller from an advertisement or may store the URL obtained through whatever source and visit the seller site directly without going through a portal or search engine. Thereafter, the Web buyer must navigate to the Web seller's Web site, using his or her Web browser. After selecting the product the Web buyer wishes to purchase, the Web buyer is typically invited to fill out a lengthy electronic form on the Web seller's site. Such electronic forms usually request personal and confidential information, including at least the user's name, address, telephone numbers, email address, and credit card information. The buyer, moreover, must log in separately in each Web site with which the buyer wishes to purchase goods and services. At each such Web site, the buyer must fill in the above-listed personal and confidential information. In effect, the buyer must fill out a credit application for each Web seller, whether or not the buyer truly wishes or needs credit. Often, the Web buyer is requested or invited to select a personal and unique identification tag (hereafter “ID”) and a password. Such ID and password pairs may then allow the Web buyer to bypass much of the data entry in the Web seller's electronic form upon his or her next visit to the Web seller's site. This, however, entails that the Web seller collects and stores the personal and billing information for each Web buyer. Although the majority of Web sellers may carefully secure and safeguard this wealth of personal information, the possibility exists that such information may be used for purposes other than originally contemplated by the Web buyer. Credit or charge card information is particularly sensitive to fraud and misuse. Indeed, a stolen (or misappropriated) but otherwise valid credit card number may be fraudulently used to purchase goods or services over the Web, due to the lack (or widely disparate nature) of security measures deployed by Web sellers to prevent such credit or charge card fraud. Such fraud is detrimental to all involved parties, including the credit card issuers, the Web buyers and the Web sellers, who must expend time and energy processing buyer complaints. The financial loss from credit card affects both credit card issuers as well as the buyer; the major loss, however, may be experienced by the merchant who has parted with the goods and has had the charge disallowed by the credit card issuer. For the merchant, this loss is a major disadvantage in the use of credit cards for e-commerce.
However, it is not only the Web buyer's credit card information that may be stolen. Potentially far more damaging is the possibility of what may be called identity theft, the misappropriation and misuse of a person's personal and financial information. The specter of identity theft is looming ever larger, as these Web-based electronic forms provide a pre-packaged, one-stop shopping source of highly detailed confidential information to unscrupulous individuals having access thereto. Although the vast majority of Web sellers are honorable and have established procedures aimed to thwart identity theft, the sheer proliferation of Web sellers on the Internet virtually ensures that such thefts will become increasingly commonplace.
Perhaps less actionable (but just as frustrating) is the possibility of what may be termed “identity confusion”. Here, one person may be confused for another and their respective personal information may be substituted or merged with one another. For example, a Web seller or credit agency may mistakenly merge two records of two identically named but separate persons. Again, this problem can only be exacerbated by the proliferation of Web sellers on the Internet, each requesting, warehousing and perhaps mining and/or selling the personal and financial information obtained from their Web buyers.
This proliferation of Web sellers also means that Web buyers are repeatedly requested to select a great many separate ID's and passwords pairs, one for each Web seller. It may become difficult, therefore, for the Web buyer to remember these ID-password pairs and/or to associate a particular ID-password pair with a particular Web seller. Some Web buyers resort to selecting a single ID-password pair and using that single ID-password pair for all of the Web sellers with whom they conduct business. This, however, is a less than satisfactory solution, as such Web buyers are more vulnerable to fraud should the single ID-password pair be misappropriated.
The perceived lack of security, simplicity and homogeneity in the data collection across Web sellers operate as barriers to entry into e-commerce, discouraging many potential buyers from purchasing goods and services on line. Web buyers, therefore, have an interest in promoting simple, homogeneous and secure Web-based transactions. What are needed, therefore, are methods and systems that allow financial transactions to be carried out on the Internet or other network in a manner that is simple, homogeneous across Web sellers and conducted in a manner that ensures the integrity and security of the Web buyers' personal and financial information.
The interests of Web sellers are generally aligned with those of their buyers, in that Web sellers have an interest in promoting simple and secure e-commerce, so as to attract the greatest possible number of buyers to their site. If an alternative to the indiscriminate collection of buyer's personal and financial information is to be implemented, Web sellers must be confident that they will be indeed paid for the goods or services they provide. What are needed, therefore, are methods and systems that will promote the interests of Web sellers and provide them with the complete assurance that they will be paid for the goods and services sold from their Web sites in a timely manner.
Curiously enough, few banks thus far have been integral parties to Web buyer—Web seller transactions. Indeed, although the money is ultimately debited from the Web buyer's bank account, or charged to his or her credit or charge card, the buyer's bank or other financial institution has not typically been actively involved in e-commerce transactions, as such transactions are conventionally structured. What are also needed, therefore, are methods and systems that include financial institutions such as banks as integral and central participants in e-commerce transactions.
Simple transactions involving a single buyer making an unconditional payment or an unconditional promise to pay a single seller, however, constitute only a fraction of the transactions that are routinely carried out. For example, many transactions involve contingent payments of some kind. Indeed, many transactions include built-in contingencies that must be met before goods or title will change hands or obligations released. Contracts for the purchase of real estate, for example, are complex transactions that typically involve the release of multiple contingencies (passing inspections, obtaining financing, carrying out improvements and other generally date-sensitive duties of both buyer and seller). Such transactions have historically been centered around holographic signatures on paper documents. Indeed, in the case of a contract for the sale of land, the buyer (and sometimes the seller) typically must repeatedly visit the escrow agent's place of business to release contingencies and/or make payments as the contingencies are met and/or released. Alternatively, a single document may be repeatedly transmitted via facsimile for signature, ultimately rendering the final document nearly illegible and potentially subject to repudiation.
Other contingent payment schemes may rely upon other insecure schemes that may also be liable to repudiation. For example, a stockbroker will accept an order to buy or sell securities or other instruments over the telephone on the presumption that the order comes from a known customer. The transaction is consummated and both documentation and payment follow by mutual agreement as “settlement”, a predetermined period after the order is filled (e.g., five days). In this scenario, the customers operate based upon the assumed good faith on the broker and the broker operates on the assumed good faith of his or her customers. Such an interaction model, however, is fraught with possibilities for abuse and may expose both parties to significant liability.
Web-based brokerage, increasingly common at the present time, allows buy-sell orders over the Web on authentication of the client; this is an improvement over the phone-voice method, but no single sign-on mechanism is presently available and the Web brokerage client must select an ID and password for each broker with whom the client deals. As with other conventionally structured Web transactions, this proliferation of IDs and passwords may operate as a barrier to entry and prevent widespread acceptance of such e-commerce businesses.
Auction escrow arrangements for consumer-oriented Web auctions are conventionally handled primarily by means of credit cards. Some on-line auction Web sites require participants to supply their credit card numbers to establish authentication. Independent escrow companies typically require credit card payments, which payments are held in escrow pending release of a timed contingency or by a specific action by the purchaser. Other examples of contingent payments include inter-company payments, especially payments from one e-business to another e-business. Such payments are typically carried out with conventional paper instruments or credit cards, neither solution being truly satisfactory. Many transactions require both spouses to physically sign a paper instrument. The inconvenience of requiring each spouse to physically go to a specified location for the sole purpose of holographically signing off on (releasing) a contingency or co-signing a paper check, contract or other instrument often tacitly encourages spousal forgery. However, such forgeries may also lead to repudiation of the instrument by the bank or escrow agent, notwithstanding the most often benign nature of the spousal forger's intent. Presently, these and other contingent payments are generally handled entirely in paper format with holographic signatures. Electronic conversion of such contingency-containing transactions awaits viable methods of securely authenticating parties to contingency-containing transactions.
Such methods should provide ease of use, security and positively identity the buyer(s) and seller(s) of contingency-based payment or other contingency-containing transactions. Preferably, such methods should not resort to using credit card numbers and/or and social security numbers for identification and/or for authentication, as many consumers are understandably reluctant to broadcast such information, particularly over public networks such as the Internet. Preferably, such methods should allow remote authentication of all parties to a transaction and allow such parties to view the status of and/or release or reject any contingency (depending upon the permission level granted to that individual) within the transaction. Preferably, such methods should asynchronously notify all authenticated parties to the transaction upon completion or failure (and/or any intermediate stage(s)) of the transaction, such as when final payment has been credited to seller or when any contingency is rejected by any party to the transaction. Moreover, online mechanisms should be present to extend credit to either of the parties to the transaction should insufficient funds be present in their respective accounts.
Turning now to the business-to-business arena, payment is not usually released at the time the buyer commits to the transaction but is instead delayed, as agreed between the parties to the transaction (such as on a Net-30 day basis, for example). One reason for this is the uncertainties inherent in the underlying transaction. For example, the buyer may be concerned that the seller might not ship the goods in questions or that the goods may be unsatisfactory or otherwise nonconforming. On the other hand, shipment of the goods prior to receiving payment from the buyer leaves the seller with doubts as to whether the buyer will, in fact, pay for the shipped goods and/or whether the buyer will pay on time and as agreed. What are needed are online mechanisms to address these concerns and doubts, as well as to compensate either party upon the non-performance of the other party.